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By Matt FlegenheimerThe New York Times • Wednesday January 30, 2013 5:10 AM

NEW YORK — Cabbies do it from the back of a taxi line at the Port Authority Bus Terminal,
coaxing their colleagues to move up a spot. Commuters do it at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel,
flabbergasted that others in a city of 8 million might share their route.

And should a fellow driver commit the cardinal sin of hesitating at a light just turned green,
anyone — from brain surgeons to criminals to the kindliest of grandmothers — can be expected to
honk.

“Those people,” former Mayor Edward I. Koch said, “are the worst.”

It is the signature act of the New York City road, and in the grand tradition of jaywalking, it
happens to be illegal; everyone does it, but hardly anyone is punished.

Now, it appears, the city has effectively thrown up its hands — or, more accurately, taken down
its signs.

In a move condemned by critics as a tacit surrender to a ubiquitous noise, the city
Transportation Department has begun removing all “Don’t Honk” signs from the streets.

City officials said it was part of an effort to declutter the streets. But the decision has
ignited opposition, particularly in high-traffic residential areas such as the Upper East and Upper
West sides.

“I can’t tell you how many requests I get for ‘no honking’ signs,” said Gale A. Brewer, a
councilwoman in Manhattan who wrote to the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan,
arguing against the change.

An ill-advised honk remains illegal, carrying a fine of $350. Last year, the Police Department
issued just 206 summonses for “unnecessary use of horn.”

Sandra Deifel, 27, who traveled this month with her husband, Frank, from Germany on her first
trip to New York, said she got used to the honking in four days.

But, she said, “Just an hour ago, we went into St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was so quiet.”